The end of Butterfly

Most people know Puccini's opera, 'Madame Butterfly', but a lot of people don't know the full story behind it; a lot of soprano opera singers will avoid this role, as it is so very emotional, one of the reasons why Lisa-Lee lost her voice. We have included the lyrics (in english), to Butterfly's final aria, it is called, 'con onor muore, Tu, Tu, piccolo iddio! This is how the opera ends, Butterfly is about to kill herself, she gets her dagger and quietly reads the inscription, it says, "He dies with honour who cannot live with honour".

Then in a desperate bid to stop Butterfly from killing herself, Suzuki rushes in and puts Butterfly's son in her arms, Butterfly drops the dagger and sings her final words to her son, she says;

You, You, You, You,
little idol of my heart.
My love, my love
flower of the lily and rose.
Never know that, for you,
for your innocent eyes,
Butterfly is about to die...
so that you may go
away beyond the sea
without being subject to remorse
in later years
for your mother's desertion.
oh, you who have come down to me
from high heaven,
look well, well
on your mother's face,
that you may keep a faint memory of it,
look well!
Little love, farewell!
Farewell, my little love!
Go and play.

Butterfly then puts her son safely away and kills herself with her dagger.

The Screen behind the mirror

In 2008 Lisa-Lee released an additional limited edition album, titled, 'The Screen behind the mirror'. This was released with the debut opera album, 'Sola perduta abbandonata'. The reason for this release was to help the sales of the first album; 'The Screen behind the mirror' managed to sell 10,000 copies over three months, resulting in Lisa-Lee selling just over 30,000 records during 2008.

Some people thought that it was a strange title for an album, but it had a deeper meaning to Lisa-Lee, what is meant by it, is for people to not judge other people, don't think you know someone from what you see on the outside, because there is a screen behind every mirror, just like a person, there is more to them than what you see.

2009 turned out to be a very difficult year for Lisa-Lee, this was because the later part of 2008 was a tough year for Lisa-Lee, not within her career, that was going from strength to strength, but her private life was a different story. Lisa-Lee found out that her friends son was dying, he was only six years old, Lisa-Lee had seen him grow up, he had a difficult early life, but the hardest part was that the boys mother had a drink and drug problem, so she was unable to cope with her sons illness, so Lisa-Lee decided to nurse him during the last five months of his life.

Lisa-Lee grew very close to 'Ben', she said that she'd of done anything to take his pain away and cure him, but she couldn't, all she could do was be there for him, Lisa-Lee said that he was the bravest person she's ever met and had he of lived, she would of arranged to adopt him, but that wasn't possible. Ben died in Lisa-Lee's arms; the grief spilled over into Lisa-Lee's career, because during her only opera performance of 2009, a performance of Puccini's 'Madama Butterfly', she lost her voice, it was the final part of the opera, when Butterfly kills herself for her little boy to live!

Some people don't realise that in the final aria of 'Madame Butterfly'; Butterfly is singing goodbye to her little boy, telling him how much she loves him. The words had such a deep meaning to Lisa-Lee, this resulted in her completely losing her voice, it ended up taking Lisa-Lee two years to retrain herself to sing opera.

2009 kept getting worse for Lisa-Lee, she was chosen to perform in another Puccini opera, 'Tosca', but when the organises saw what Lisa-Lee looked like, they very rudely told her that she was far too ugly and way too fat, so she got sacked. The organisers chose a very pretty young women, who did a terrible performance; the critics hated it, so that brought Lisa-Lee some joy; although she wouldn't of been able to do the performance, as she had lost her voice.

Things took a nasty turn for Lisa-Lee during 2009, she had decided to lose weight, but while out walking Lisa-Lee fell on a used hypodermic needle, this meant that she had to have quite a few injections to protect herself, also she had to wait 12 weeks (3 months), to find out if she had contracted the HIV virus; it was highly unlikely that Lisa-Lee would of caught HIV but she still had to be tested to be 100% certain. The worry of the HIV re-awoken fears from Lisa-Lee's childhood, during her early years when she was abused by a group of paedophiles, they used to tell Lisa-Lee that they had infected her with HIV and she was going to die!

Lisa-Lee was going through a hugely stressful time, remembering past events that she had completely forgotten, she was having panic attacks and bad nightmares, when she could sleep, so she eventually went to a counsellor and was told that she was suffering from, 'post traumatic stress disorder' (PTSD). Through counselling Lisa-Lee got through it; not only was Lisa-Lee dealing with grief but she also had to relive her childhood ordeals and try to get her voice back, part of Lisa-Lee just gave up, she'd had enough and needed to take time to slowly build herself back up.

Lisa-Lee gave her most open interview to her local newspaper, 'The south Wales Evening post'. This was part of her recovery from 'PTSD', and it was a way of letting people know what she had been through, most people judged her and put her down without knowing anything about her. In this interview Lisa-Lee spoke openly about her memories of abuse, she told them how she was told that she had been infected with HIV and was going to die, and how they sold her to each other for 10p, and how they would sometimes strangle her until she almost passed out, just to show her that they could kill her if they wanted to.

To give Lisa-Lee time to recover her record company changed their release plans, they decided to put out another limited edition EP / album, this was only released in the UK and Ireland, to try to build up her profile and boost the sales of her debut opera album, as it was released free with it; the title of this release was, 'Almost nothing'. Lisa-Lee says that this is how she was made to feel by people; like she was almost nothing! Unfortunatley this release failed to be successful, but it was badly promoted, something out of Lisa-Lee's control. 

Sola, perduta, abbandonata

After taking several months off during 2005 to clean up the mess left behind from Lisa-Lee's last recording deal, she was considering quitting the music industry for good, but luckily for Lisa-Lee she got introduced to the 'Moggi' brothers, they ran their own independent opera company in Italy, and they were interested in working with Lisa-Lee; they were trying to launch their opera group in the UK and Ireland and they wanted to set up their own record label, and Lisa-Lee not only had the vocal talent to go into opera, but she had the contacts to set up a label.

The Moggi brother decided to give Lisa-Lee several months to train her opera voice, ready for an audition, which happened in July 2006. They were all more than happy with what Lisa-Lee could do, so they asked her to start training for three operas, they assisted Lisa-Lee's development by arranging voice lessons once a month.

Lisa-Lee's early opera voice is her copying the Italian opera diva 'Renata Scotto', the opera group didn't have a problem with that, as the plan was to gradually break Lisa-Lee into the opera world; it was planned that for the first five years Lisa-Lee would do semi-professional opera performances, these semi-professional opera performances were corporate events, and a small amount of critics would be invited to hear Lisa-Lee's performances, gradually becoming more as the events grew. After the five years, the plan was to gradually build Lisa-Lee's profile on the professional opera stage, they were planning on getting Lisa-Lee to do a few opera festivals and open air concerts, and continue her corporate concerts for another two years, then for her to move into the touring part of the opera group.

In 2007 Lisa-Lee starred in her first opera, she was to play the part of Liu in Puccini's opera 'Turandot'. Lisa-Lee didn't get paid for these two performances, as all the money was going to charity but it was a good introduction into the 'real' opera world, the European critics that were there said that Lisa-Lee's performance was 'truly beautiful'. The second opera that Lisa-Lee starred in later on in 2007 was Puccini's 'Sr. Angelica', with Lisa-Lee playing the lead / title role (sister Angelica); this was just a one off performance, Lisa-Lee didn't feel too happy with her performance, as she said that she made lots of little mistakes, but no one noticed, as the one critic that was there wrote that Lisa-Lee gave another beautiful performance. Lisa-Lee says that she was more nervous about this performance, as it was the first one that she was getting paid for.

In 2008 the Moggi brothers decided that Lisa-Lee had to do the opera role of 'Madama Butterfly', this was the role that Renata Scotto was best known for, and although Lisa-Lee was nervous about doing this role, she agreed, it was the best decision she made, as the critics really began to pay attention to her, at first some were stand-offish as Lisa-lee was copying another soprano, but after seeing her in Butterfly, they didn't care too much; at the start of 2008 Lisa-Lee did two performances of Puccini's 'Madama Butterfly. The few critics wrote that Lisa-Lee's performance brought everyone to tears, they said that she has one of the most beautiful and pretties voices in opera, one of the critics even wrote that Lisa-Lee was one of the most exciting young female opera voices to come along for years.

This lead to the release of Lisa-Lee's debut opera recital album, titled, 'Sola, perduta, abbandonata'. The translation of this is, 'alone, lost, abandoned'. This 2008 release contained Lisa-Lee's debut opera performance in Puccini's Turandot, plus several other recording Lisa-Lee made during the last four years. The reviews of this album were good and it slowly built up to become a success, it wasn't a huge success but gradually it built up enough sales to be considered a hit in the opera world. This album was not a mainstream release, it was kept as a special limited edition release, the record company only planned to promote it for 18 months before withdrawing it, during this time, the album went on to sell just over 20,000 copies over Europe.

Later in 2008 Lisa-Lee was due to perform in her fourth opera, this time a Verdi opera, 'Nabucco', it was reported that the Moggi brothers were asked to put on this opera for a Russian billionaire who's partner was dying, they were fans of Renata Scotto but never got to see her in an opera, so they were hugely interested in Lisa-Lee, they paid the opera group £250,000 for them to stage this opera, on the strict instruction that Lisa-Lee was to play the role of Abigail. Unfortunately this opera got cancelled due to the Russian billionaires partner falling very ill, she later on died.

Later in 2008 Lisa-Lee did one more performance in 'Madama Butterfly'; career wise 2007 and 2008 turned out to be very good years for Lisa-Lee, she was finally getting some where in the opera world

Fragile

In 2005 Lisa-Lee was set to release an album titled, 'Fragile', although this album was never released. This was due to the fact that Lisa-Lee felt that she couldn't cope any longer, she felt like she has having a nervous break down, due to all the trouble and problems that were being caused by the man from the last record company, he had become Lisa-Lee's first stalker; she said that it was not only a hugely stressful time but it was also a frightening time! Having people follow you around taking your photo, then having these photos sent to you with death and rape threats, being followed in the car in the evenings, and having to drive dangerously to get away from them, these people were trying to cause Lisa-Lee to crash her car, she describes it as a terrible time.

Lisa-Lee pulled out of the release of the new album as she just needed to take a break from the industry, she wasn't sure if she still wanted to be in the music industry, was it worth it? Was it going to get much worse or better? How was she going to get rid of her stalker or was he really going to try to kill her! Lisa-Lee says that she had lost her fight, she needed time away from everything and everyone, so she could decide on her future, where was life taking her?

Breath of life

In 2004 Lisa-Lee released her first main stream classical album titled, 'Breath of life'. This is the first album that got the media and other people more interested in Lisa-Lee, although this album was also a huge commercial flop; although that was due to problems with the record company and things out of Lisa-Lee's control. Everyone seemed to like and enjoy this album, it should have been a huge success but it almost ended her career.

Lisa Lee always wanted to work with a British record company, and that is what she achieved with the 'Breath of life' album, but it was the worst thing that happened in her career. Someone from the record company had mental health problems, and he became obsessed with Lisa-Lee; he used to try to 'control' Lisa-Lee and used to threaten to kill himself if Lisa-Lee refused to obey his orders. In the end Lisa-Lee told him to go ahead and kill himself, as she found it hard to cope with his behaviour, then the threats became more stressful, as he would either threaten to poison and kill Lisa-Lee, or he would threaten to kill his own 2 year old little boy!

Lisa-Lee got in touch with the mans family and they were not surprised, and it was then that Lisa-Lee discovered that he was a paranoid schizophrenic who didn't always take his medication. He made Lisa-Lee's life a misery for years, so she refused to work with him, and what he was doing was damaging to her career, plus because he couldn't get control over Lisa-Lee he tried to ruin her career. He kept sending her the record companies bills and spreading lies about her, plus he paid people to follow her and take her photo, then he would post them to her with threats against her life. In the end the only thing that seemed to work was when Lisa-Lee just completely ignored him, although she did later on find out that he had been sectioned.

Lisa-Lee refuses to name him, partly because she is worried that if she gives him any attention, the obsession with her might come back, and that is the last thing that she wants; but the other reason why she won't name him, is out of respect for him and his family. Lisa-Lee says that the family were kind and helpful, they took the time to listen to her and gave her advice, which she took, but also Lisa-Lee feels that the person who almost ruined and ended her career was actually a kind and caring, good hearted person, who just had his own problems that he needed to deal with. Lisa-Lee says that he was very misunderstood, as when he was well and listening, he was very good at his job, although there were issues that he couldn't deal with, so his way of dealing with them; is to not take his medication and allow his paranoid mind take control. Lisa-Lee hopes that he gets better and has a happy and healthy life, she wishes him no harm, even though he wanted to kill her!

The 'Breath of life' album, was supposed to be a new age classical style album, but the record company decided to call it a pop opera classical crossover album, even though Lisa-Lee had made it very clear that this is the last thing she wanted her album classed as, due to the fact that she wanted to become an opera singer and this could have closed doors to her, as the opera critics hate the classical crossover artists and music, but on top of that the record company made last minute changes to the finished album that Lisa-Lee knew nothing about, and they didn't have the correct licences in place, but they also refused to tell Lisa-Lee where to she had to go in London to do her radio promotion, the man from the record company told her that he couldn't tell her where to go, as people were listening on the phone! This is why it was impossible for Lisa-Lee to carry on working with this man and record company.

New Era Featuring Lisa Lee Dark

Due to the success of Lisa-Lee's last release, 'A journey of faith', Chris Jenkins, Lisa-Lee's first manager, decided to cash in on her success. He started releasing classical material in the early 1990's, this material was vocal work and instrumental work with a choir and orchestra in the studio, he would usually have Lisa-Lee singing some solo vocal work, so she could be classed as the main vocalist of this group / project.

This studio group / project was hugely successful, but that was mostly down to the fact that the name changed a good few times. To begin with (in 1992) the group were called, 'The KLF', Chris was later asked to change the name as there was already a group with that same name that was successful, so he changed the name of his group to, 'Cappella', in 1995, but was once again asked to change the name for the same reasons, so in 1997 he changed the name of his group to, 'Enigma', but had to change it for the same reasons, so in 2000 he called his group, 'ERA', but had to change it again, so in 2001 he changed it to, 'New Era', but this was only a small EP release, he had no trouble with this name, but as Lisa-Lee was beginning to make a name for herself, he decided to cash in on it and re-name the group yet again, this time to, 'New Era featuring Lisa Lee Dark'.

In 2003 Chris Jenkins put an album together of Lisa-Lee's classical vocal singing, that he owned the copyright to, and planned to release it, unfortunately, the distributor went bust before the release, and a short while later, the record company also went bankrupt, so this release never saw the light of day. This was also the end of this musical group, as Chris began to have health problems off and on before he died in late 2009.

The group are classed as new age, Christian classical. This project was hugely successful as the group managed to sell over 2 million records worldwide, although everyone believes that it was mostly down to the name, most of the people who bought these records most likely thought they were buying another bands album, Chris claims that he didn't realise that his studio group had the same name as another band, already successful and selling, but Lisa-Lee says that he did it on purpose, most of the sales happened online, and when they went into record shops, the albums usually ended up with the original bands, so people were duped into buying it. This project made Chris a wealthy man, but Lisa-Lee was just paid as a session singer with an extremely small percentage going into a trust fund, that later on went bankrupt, leaving Lisa-Lee with nothing.

The last dance album

VIP international records decided to go back on their word / agreement with Lisa-Lee, she was supposed to release 3 albums with other projects, and then begin releasing her own solo material, but the MD's at VIP decided to re-start Lisa-Lee's deal, with her spending at least three more years / albums being released as free give aways with another project / album; but Lisa-Lee couldn't afford to do that, as she made no money from the first three albums, she just had studio time and she couldn't afford to not be earning for at least three more years, so Lisa-Lee asked them to terminate her recording deal; this was upsetting for Lisa-Lee as she had worked so hard to get her first deal, but Lisa-Lee had no guarantees that the MD's wouldn't just keep doing the same thing, they broke their promises to her and she no longer trusted them.

Before the contract was officially over Lisa-Lee had to do one more release, the record company wanted to prove to Lisa-Lee that she wasn't good enough to be a solo artist, so they allowed her to create her own album, even though it would be another free give away, they believed that it wouldn't sell many copies, but they were wrong!

In 2002 Lisa-Lee released her fourth and final dance album, 'Asia', Lisa-Lee was very clever with what she did, as she used dance songs that had an Asian musical influence, this proved to be a winning thing because the football world cup was going on in Asia, so her little free album got radio airplay on its own; when critics were reviewing the main dance music compilation album, they went on to review Lisa-Lee's free album, they recommended that people should buy the dance compilation album, just to get a copy of Lisa-Lee's album.

The record company were taken by surprise, there was demand for Lisa-Lee's album, so they did start to sell it as a solo album, but only through the record companies own website, they missed a great opportunity by not relaunching it and selling it as a solo release, the album (Asia) had the ability to be a big hit on its own. Asia went on to sell just over 30,000 copies, this turned out to be the record companies most successful release, it would of sold a lot more if they had marketed and promoted it as a solo release, but they refused to, which shows why they went bust a few years later. Lisa-Lee believes that it was because of her weight issue, she hadn't lost any weight even though she was trying, but there was a lot more to it than just losing weight, it wasn't that simple for Lisa-Lee.

After the success of the album 'Asia', the record company wanted to do something for the victims and survivors of 9/11, they asked Lisa-Lee if she would be prepared to do a small charity release; they wanted to release some recordings of hers that she made as a teenager, singing Christian songs. This EP was titled, 'A journey of faith'; this was only released on cassette through mail order, all the money went to the 9/11 appeal; even though this was only a mail order release it shifted over 45,000 copies. Lisa-Lee believes that the record company only released that EP to get some free and good publicity for themselves.

From 1999 - 2002 Lisa-Lee sold around 100,000 records for VIP international records, the success of the last release showed Lisa-Lee that it was time for her to return to her musical roots and go back to classical music.

The first three releases

After signing her deal in 1998, Lisa-Lee had to wait until late 1999 to release her debut solo dance album, this gave Lisa-Lee time to prepare this first album and start the next two releases. The first three dance albums were classes as give aways, they came free with a dance DJ / producer mixed album, this was a way of slowly building up Lisa-Lee's profile in the dance music scene and with the national press. Lisa-Lee felt that this was a good idea, as it meant that she could slowly expose herself to the media, she felt that if she rushed with promotion and did a lot of it, her story could be sensationalised and become tacky, Lisa-Lee wanted her story to be told carefully, as she was helping to educate people, to get them to understand that gender is not such a taboo subject and it's not as black and white as alot of people believe. This also gave Lisa-Lee the chance to come to terms with her own condition, plus it gave her a chance to see how the media works, it turned out to be a good and educational experience.

The debut release was titled, 'The unknown story of Lisa-Lee Dark', a clever title, as not only did it refer to Lisa-Lee's medical condition (CAH), but it also refered to her musical career, as no one had heard of Lisa-Lee Dark in the industry, as she had been a session singer working on original material, and doing 'cover' versions of other dance hits, but by perfectly mimicking the original singers version. This first release was released twice, firstly in 1999 with some of the money going to different charities and again in 2000, but none of that went to charity. When the album was first released it didn't do very well, it didn't get above the 1,000 sales mark, but everyone felt and believed that it was partly due to it being released late in 1999, when absolutely everybody was releasing material. When the album got re-released in 2000 it went on to sell just over 9,000 copies, meaning that this album sold a little over 10,000 copies, not too bad for a very small independent record label.

The second album was titled, 'MM:- The story continues'. The story that Lisa-Lee was getting across was all of the songs she had copied and how different she could sound. This album was released in 2000 and sold an additional 10,000 copies. The third dance album was titled, 'Pray (forever), this was due for release in September 2001, but the timing clashed with the terrorist attacks on America (9/11), it turned out to be hugely difficult to promote this release as the press were focusing on the 9/11 attacks. This affected the sales of this album as it only managed to sell half of what the first two releases had achieved, it sold just 5,000 copies.

Solo recording deal

In 1998 Lisa-Lee signed her first solo recording deal, it was for an amazing $5 million, although the deal wasn't as good as it sounds. Lisa-Lee signed a few deals, one with VIP international records, a publishing and promotional deal and on top of that, a small deal to record classical / opera arias for TV and film soundtracks, and work on new original material and do voice over acting work; the future looked good for Lisa-Lee.

Lisa-Lee wasn't able to start releasing material until the next year (1999), due to her first recording deal, but that would soon be over. Lisa-Lee was determind not to lose her weight before getting her deal, she wanted to create a posative image and show people that you didn't have to be super skinny or look like a 'bimbo' porn star to get a recording career, or to release records. The record company were fine with this, provided that Lisa-Lee did try to lose weight later on.

Discovering the truth

When Lisa-Lee was about 11 or 12 she started experiencing very bad migraines and muscular pains, sometimes she'd wake up in agony, she did go to her doctor because she knew it was something more serious than just growing pains, although her then GP told her that it was only growing pains, he also went on to tell her that children nowadays don't realise how lucky they were and Lisa-Lee was just spoilt; this couldn't of been further away from the truth! Lisa-Lee's life was a living hell, she also told the doctor about her depressions, and he told her that she wasn't suffering from depressions, he told her that the only people who suffer from depressions are the ones who have no reason to be depressed.

After a few years of going through the same thing, and when ever Lisa-Lee met anyone, most of the time they thought Lisa-Lee was a girl, she never understood why, so Chris Jenkins arranged for Lisa-Lee to see a specialist, who dealt with intersex conditions; this so called specialist told Lisa-Lee that she had a rare hormone irregularity, this was because she was born with both sexes, he also told Lisa-Lee that her body was trying to become more female and she had to choose, did she want to be male or female? He also told Lisa-Lee that she would be dead by the time she's 25 and it will most likely be a painful death.

Lisa-Lee felt completely confused, she believed herself to be male, so she thought that is how she is supposed to be, also she didn't want to make her families life difficult, so she opted to take male hormones to make herself be more masculine, all this did was make Lisa-Lee gain a lot of weight, grow wider and have half her hair fall out, the only posative thing that Lisa-Lee saw was that she'd die young, that made her happy knowing that the difficulties would end.

Lisa-Lee knew that she would be coming into money when she was 25, so she just hoped that until then she could grow closer to her family and that her money would help make their lives happier. Lisa-Lee carried on with her work, not only was she in the recording studio doing session work on music projects, but she also started doing voice over work on low budgeted European horror movies, she did about five of these films, plus she was recording lead vocals for the Christian new age classical group, 'New Era', although the group have had several name changes. Lisa-Lee's recording career was going from strength to strength.

Although Lisa-Lee wanted to get accepted and noticed by her family, this wasn't happening, she just longed for her family to notice her and how hard she worked, but they continued to ignore her and say unpleasant things about her. Lisa-Lee left school at the age of 15, she had no quolifications but she'd had enough of the daily abuse, this helped her life improve, for Lisa-Lee things began to feel good; she decided to push forward and develop her own solo music career, although Chris Jenkins did not like this idea and he refused to help her, so she carried on regardless, although she did learn the hard way as she had hundreds and hundreds of rejections but she never gave in, she just gradually learnt from her mistakes and improved herself.

Over time people started taking an interest in Lisa-Lee, they usually liked her voice but thought she was too fat and ugly to have her own recording deal, this went on for a while. Due to her life improving Lisa-Lee decided to question her medical advice, she had learnt that taking the male hormones made her feel terrible, but when she didn't bother taking them, she started to feel better, it wasn't until Lisa-Lee was 19 that she got diagnosed with the correct medical condition, 'congenital adrenal hyperplasia' (CAH), she was told that the other advice was nonsense and she wasn't about to die, although had she kept taking the hormones then she might of died young. It took Lisa-Lee a few years to accept this news, she had prepared herself to die but now she had to start living!

 Lisa-Lee didn't understand CAH and no one would help her find out about it, some specialist told her that certain families didn't want people knowing about their childrens condition so they refused to tell her anything, or how to find out more about it. The medical profession had once again let Lisa-Lee down, although life was about to improve with her career and life.

Protection

When Lisa-Lee was 10 years old there was a fire in the family home; her father got very drunk and decided to cook, he put the chip pan on and fell asleep, the chip pan caught fire and the whole house ended up burning. This was the night that Lisa-Lee knew her parents didn't care about her. Lisa-Lee was usually awake, looking after her younger sister and taking care of the home when her parents were drunk, but this night she fell asleep herself, her father was the first to wake, and he woke the mother and she got the children out, they never called Lisa-Lee, she woke up as they were leaving. Lisa-Lee says, "I saw them leaving, I can even remember how disappointed they looked and sounded when they realised that I had woken up, my father told me that we had to go because there was a fire".

Lisa-Lee was in the same room as her father, she was in full view of the fire, but she saw no flames, everyone was chocking with the black thick smoke, but the smoke had no affect on Lisa-Lee, she could see everything in the room quite clearly, it wasn't like smoke, it was like a type of mist and the room was very brightly lit, this was strange but it made Lisa-Lee feel calm, something was protecting her. Lisa-Lee didn't realise this at the start, but she later on realised that she felt something there protecting and comforting her.

Four or five years later Lisa-Lee went through a very religious phase in her life, she went to church everyday, made sure she was properly baptized, she even went to confession once a week, Lisa-Lee says that she was practically a walking saint. This deep religious phase lasted a good few years, but as with everything else in her life, her parents hated this phase, they constantly laughed and made fun of her, everytime Lisa-Lee said or did anything that was slightly unchristian, in their view, they would throw all sorts of religious quotes at her and tell her how useless she was, but as she pointed out, "just because I'm going to church doesn't mean that I have to act like a saint, I'm a practising catholic nothing more, just trying to learn how to be a better person".

Gradually they stopped making fun, but Lisa-Lee did worry that the only reason why she was attending church so much was to annoy her parents, she said, " If my parents hated something that I did, I would make sure that I did it more and more and more, one of my problems in life was that fact that I am hugely stubborn, I am incredibly obstinate".

Over time and mostly to do with work, Lisa-Lee's religious phase did die down slightly, but Lisa-Lee went through stages, when she didn't mind missing church, but after a while she would hugely miss it, and she would begin to attend regularly; although she has found the people in a church difficult to deal with on times, she says that she would go through phases of being ill but no one ever called her to see if she was OK, they just left her, there is also a lot of bickering amoung different groups of a church and this irritates Lisa-Lee, she has enough of her own problems without having to deal with petty little issues in a local church.

Lisa-Lee says that although she has met a lot of nice people in church, she has mostly met very judgemental people, who gossip and put people down and Lisa-Lee wants nothing to do with that. The problem, according to Lisa-Lee, is that most of these people have no life and they're trying to show people that they are good because they go to church, going to church makes them feel superior, they're trying to look and feel important, but Lisa-Lee says, " it is good to go to church and believe in something, but it's more important what you do when you leave the church, I want to look back in so many years time and see that my life did something, I want to be of some help to others, I want my life to be useful, that can only happen by me going out into the world and making a difference, the smallest of things can help".

The one thing that Lisa-Lee knows from her religious phase is that, she understood that she has always felt a presence in her life, something guiding her, and she realised when she started going to church that she had a good understanding of lots of things within the catholic faith, although some people would class Lisa-Lee and her faith as being a fast food catholic, meaning that she's only interested in certain things within the faith, there are lots of things that she doesn't like or agree with, so she just ignores them. Lisa-Lee says, " Faith is good but in small doses".

Light at the end of the tunnel

Lisa Lee Dark's life changed when she met music manager / producer Chris Jenkins; he first spotted Lisa-Lee singing to herself in her local park, Ravenhill, he approached Lisa-Lee and told her that he wanted to record her, but Lisa-Lee was only six years old and she was very shy, she first of all thought that he was either lying or just having a laugh at her expense, so she just politely refused, but he kept on telling Lisa-Lee how good she was but she didn't believe him, as no one had ever paid her a complement, in fact everyone had told her that she was crap and useless and wouldn't amount to nothing in life. Lisa-Lee had never been encouraged, if she ever told anyone her dreams ambitions and goals in life, they would just laugh at her make fun, so she learnt to keep things to herself. Life was a horrible place for Lisa-Lee.

After around three years of seeing Chris Jenkins in her local park, he still kept on to her about how good her singing voice was, one day Lisa-Lee was so fed up with him and everyone else in life, she decided to give Chris a chance, she truly believed that he was just going to laugh at her like everyone else did, but he didn't, he really did believe in her and her singing voice. Deep down Lisa-Lee thought that Chris might of been a serial killer and if she went with him, he would kill her, on one hand this frightened her but on the other hand she really did want to die; that is the real reason she went with him because she thought he'd kill her!

At the tender old age of nine Lisa-Lee's recording career began, she discovered that not only did Chris believe in her, but her also encouraged her to go after her dreams, and she also discovered that not everyone was bad, maybe there were some kind and decent people in life. Lisa-Lee began her music career recording classical, sacred and modern music with her singing in a classical style for TV and film soundtrack, or background music; this then lead, by accident, to Lisa-Lee recording dance and alternative recordings.

The money wasn't great to start off with but she was earning between £40 - £75 per recording; that was a lot of money for a child. Lisa-Lee did discover later on that Chris was making a lot more money than that, but she was happy to take her small cut. The music gave her an escape from her difficult life, it took her away from her troubles and showed her that life might be worth living.

Chris discovered that Lisa-Lee had a very unique voice, not only did she have the ability to perfectly mimick other singers, but she also had an amazing 8 - 9 octave range. Lisa-Lee was aware that she had a big voice but she started to study other singers because she wanted to be a better singer, she wasn't aware that she was perfectly mimicking other singers until Chris pointed this out to her.

Chris decided to take full advantage of this unique and rare voice; he recorded Lisa-Lee mimicking and copying certain dance chart hits, he then released these recording on the mid priced budgeted music charts / shops. This brough Lisa-Lee and Chris a lot of success as these recordings went on to sell over a million copies all over Europe. Lisa-Lee had wisened up by then and told Chris that she should have more money as it was more work and these recording were making a lot more money, he reluctantly agreed, and this deal became Lisa-Lee's first recording deal, she was around 14 at the time. This deal just meant that Lisa-Lee would get a small percentage of the profit from the record sales, on top of her small fee for recording the song.

Chris opened up a trust fund for Lisa-Lee, she would of had £50,000 when she turned 21, and then the additional £200,000 when she turned 25, but things never turned out so simple for Lisa-Lee, her mother threw away her contract / agreement for the first £50,000, so the people looking after Lisa-Lee's money refused to give her what was owed to her, they told her she would have to wait until she was 25 and then get the full £250,000, this frustrated Lisa-Lee as it kept her trapped in home, it took away her freedom and independence; but things were set to get a lot worse, as before Lisa-Lee turned 25, the people looking after her money went bankrupt, so she ended up having nothing!

Life gets worse

Lisa-Lee's life got a lot more difficult before it got any better! Lisa-Lee's mothers' drink problem gradually became worse and the families financial situation became more grim, her parents almost had their house taken off them twice, and the family debts kept on mounting up, the stress level were extreme, and this lead to both parents drinking and fighting more, but unfortunately for Lisa-Lee she was in the middle of it all, and usually had the blame for all the family difficulties. Lisa-Lee had to put up with violence from both parents during their drunken rages, this lead to Lisa-Lee becoming more sensative and unsure of herself; at a time when Lisa-Lee should of been getting to know herself and grow in confidence, she was becoming more with- drawn from everyday life and people, she was a loner who was gradually becoming more and more isolated as she was getting older.

Life did not improve for Lisa-Lee, to get away from the fights in the home she would walk the streets, sometimes sleeping rough for a night, and sometimes sleeping in the garage, she would do anything to get away from her family, as she was having the blame for everything; at a very young age Lisa-Lee had no friends and no one loved her or took care of her.

During the time when Lisa-Lee would walk the streets she met someone who befriended her, he listened to her and Lisa-Lee believed he was a friend; but this was not the case, in actual fact Lisa-Lee was being groomed by a paedophile, so he and his group could abuse her. It was during this abuse that Lisa-Lee discovered she was different, but she was so confused with life and she was suffering from very bad depressions, she just never questioned anything; all Lisa-Lee wanted from life was to die! Lisa-Lee regularly prayed to god to die, she believed that even god didn't want her, as he kept her alive. Lisa-Lee says that most of the abuse from the paedophiles was violence, but as she got older she realised that sex had very little to do with this type of abuse, as it's about control and fear. The peadophiles would sell Lisa-Lee to each other for 10p, they also kept telling Lisa-Lee that they had infected her with HIV and aids and she was going to die, this threat and fear never left Lisa-Lee's head.

Lisa-Lee saw no end to her torment, life was a dark cold lonely place, and due to Lisa-Lee being so isolated from everyone and having no friends, this then lead to her being badly bullied in school, the older she got the worse the bullying became; it got so bad that Lisa-Lee would regularly get kicked, punched in the head and spat at in the face, along with being called all sorts of names; the older Lisa-Lee became the less masculine she became, as she was really female, so this made the bullying worse, especially as she attended an all boys comprehensive school, the pupils made her life a living hell, but it wasn't just the boys, it was also some of the staff; but on top of that when Lisa-Lee might of been walking up the shops she'd have the bullies brothers and sisters screaming things at her, and sometines the bullies parents would join in! This was because Lisa-Lee lived in a rough area, she was a shy, sensative, caring person who was a loner by nature. The advice that Lisa-Lee was given by staff at her school was to take up boxing and fight the bullies, even though the school had a policy that you'd be suspended if you were caught fighting! This was the advice given to Lisa-Lee by the head master of her school. Lisa-Lee was a gentle person, she'd been through enough violence of her own, she didn't want to go arounding hitting people, because she never wanted to hurt anyone, as she knew what it was like to experience violence. Lisa-Lee just wanted to die!

Difficult early life

Lisa Lee Dark was born in Swansea, she first lived in Clydach, one of the Swansea Valleys, before moving to Brynhyfryd and then Penlan (Caereithin). Lisa-Lee's early life was difficult, there wasn't always problems but there was a lot of unhappiness. Lisa-Lee's older sister (Tracey) is only her half sister, they don't share the same father, although Tracey only knows Lisa-Lee's father (Roy) as her own father. This caused Lisa-Lee problems as Lisa-Lee was treated worse and made to feel like second best.

Growing up all the focus and attention was on the older sister. Lisa-Lee's parents had money and drink problems, she witnessed a lot of violence by her parents and quite often was in the middle of it all. The most cruel thing that Lisa-Lee's parents did to her when they were drunk was; they'd get her out of bed late at night or very early in the morning, and tell her that they (her parents) are getting divorced and she had to choose which one she wanted to live with, as her older sister would go with her mother as she was hers, but where did Lisa-Lee want to go, as neither of her parents wanted her; this affected Lisa-Lee deeply, as she was under 6 years old when this would regularly happen, she had to listen to both parents say they didn't want her, but they both wanted her older sister; sometimes they would tell Lisa-Lee that they hated her.

Lisa-Lee says that her older sister made the most of being the favourite and enjoyed it. Lisa-Lee had no one, growing up she felt alone and unloved, although she does point out that it wasn't all bad, but the trouble is when so many bad things happen they stick in your mind more than the good, the bad memories bury the few good ones; this is because when you are a child you are like a spounge, you absorb everything and this is what you build your foundations on. These difficult times stay with you, Lisa-Lee says that this is why she is unstable, her head is messed up.

The medical condition / CAH

When Lisa-Lee was born doctors believed that she was male, she never found out that she was a fully functioning female until the age of 19. This is because Lisa-Lee was born with the rare inter-sex medical condition called, 'Congenital adrenal hyperplasia' (CAH).

The condition called 'congenital adrenal hyperplasia' (CAH), leads to an exessive outpouring of the male hormone testosterone during the early part of foetal life; while the genes are thoroughly xx female, an inherited faulty gene blocks production of an essential enzyme. The deficiency leads to upsets in the body's hormone balance and causes the adrenal glands to produce low levels of cortisol, the stress hormone; in response, the pituitary (the body's conductor gland) pushes the adrenals into top gear to make more cortisol, because of the enzyme deficiency, they secrete more and more testosterone and in the most severe cases, like Lisa-Lee's, the hormone leads to fusion of the female genitalia and in some an enlarged clitoris, making it quite easy to mistake new born girls for boys, though ovaries and womb remain intact, making it possible for Lisa-Lee to have children of her own. Congenital adrenal hyperplasia is a disorder that affects one in 15,000 births world wide, with varying degrees of masculinisation.

What this means in a more simple way is, while Lisa-Lee was in her mothers womb, she was over exposed to the male hormone testosterone, this resulted in her female genitalia being fused and enlarged, so it looked like a male penis, this is why doctors believed that Lisa-Lee was male, and why she grew up believing this herself.

Famous relatives

Lisa Lee Dark was born in the spring, April 16; she was born to become a star and work in the entertainment industry, fame and entertainment run in her blood. Lisa-Lee's great great great great aunt was the Victorian opera singer 'Adelina Patti' (1843-1919); Adelina was the heighest paid opera singer in the world and classed as one of the all time greats. Lisa-Lee is related to her by Adelina's second marrige to a French tenor, not many people know this but Lisa-Lee's surname is a French surname, but it was most likely spelt D'ark, but gradually over time it became Dark.

Lisa-Lee's great great aunt and God-mother was the Hollywood legend 'Bette Davis' (1908-1989), Bette was classed as one of the greatest screen actresses of the 20th century, she was also the heighest paid actress in the world during the 1930's and 1940's.

Lisa-Lee was also at one point distantly related to the screen actor Sir Anthony Hopkins. Lisa-Lee is unsure if they are still related, Lisa-Lee says, "coming from a small place like Wales means that you have a lot of links and connections to lots of people, it's very easy to find yourself related to lots of people, whether they are famous or not".

Lisa-Lee's family tree is very difficult to research as there have been a lot of adoptions in the family, and a lot of relatives have brought up other family members children, due to death and other things, so a lot of these children had their names changed later in life and got adopted.

Official Lisa Lee Dark Blog

This is the official blog of Swansea born opera singer Lisa Lee Dark; Lisa-Lee is becoming a well known opera singer, but she is also known for being born with the rare inter-sex medical condition, 'congenital adrenal hyperplasia' (CAH); plus she is related to two of the most famous women in the world from the last 200 years; her great great great great aunt was the Victorian opera singer Adelina Patti (1843-1919); and her God-mother and great great aunt was the Hollywood legend Bette Davis (1908-1989).

Lisa-Lee is no stranger to the entertainment industry; she was discovered singing in her local park, Ravenhill, at the age of six by music manager / record producer Chris Jenkins; but it took her three years to build up enough confidence to begin recording, and from the tender age of nine her recording career began. Lisa-Lee has never looked back since or stopped recording her unique voice.

Lisa-Lee has also recorded lead vocals for the Christian, new age, classical ambient group, 'New Era'; on top of all the above Lisa-Lee has done voice over acting work on several low budget European horror movies and four Hollywood movies. Lisa-Lee's main ambitions now, are to continue building up her opera and music career, and get involved in film making, writing scripts, directing, acting and creating new independent films.